Quasi-Divine Artifact, Demon-Subduing Staff

"The heroes of the greenwood these days really are getting worse with every generation."

Mu Chen's gaze was deep and his expression wistful, as if he were reminiscing about something.

Zhan Xiong's head remained pinned beneath his foot, his face buried in the dirt; no matter how much he struggled, that foot suppressed him as steadily as a mountain.

"Trash, you have no value in staying alive."

Mu Chen shook his head in disappointment, then lifted his foot to stomp down on Zhan Xiong's neck.

The human body is sometimes incredibly fragile, especially in a vital area like the neck.

Without spiritual energy to protect his body, if this stomp landed true, Zhan Xiong would undoubtedly die.

"No! Don't hurt my brother!"

"Brother Mu Chen, all the points my brother and I have are right here. Please show mercy and spare us; we admit defeat this time."

In the distance, Zhan Cheng, who had been heavily wounded by a single blow, propped himself up with a broken sword and shouted in desperation.

As he spoke, he threw his Blood-Colored Token with all his might.

Mu Chen, with his back to Zhan Cheng, seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. He reached his right arm back casually, and the flying black shadow was precisely pinched between two fingers.

"If you had just said that earlier, we wouldn't be here."

Mu Chen brought the two Blood-Colored Tokens together, and the five points on the Zhan brothers' token were rapidly drained and transferred to his own name.

The Zhan brothers had only entered the Spirit Road Selection half a day earlier than him, yet their speed was not slow.

In just half a day, they had already killed four low-level spirit beasts.

Three were early-stage low-level, and one was mid-stage low-level, hence the five points.

Zhan Cheng watched this scene with a heart full of pain.

To rob them of even five measly points—this mosquito meat—was truly heartless!

However, at least they were safe now.

"Though, while the death penalty is waived, the living punishment is unavoidable."

Before the heart hanging in Zhan Cheng's chest could settle, he saw Mu Chen move again.

"Ah!"

Amidst Zhan Xiong's wails, his four limbs were crushed underfoot on the spot.

"You went back on your word!"

Zhan Cheng, whose heart was shattered at the sight, was about to let out a torrent of abuse when a small Shi flew in a graceful arc, striking him directly in the chest.

Crack, crack. Zhan Cheng did not escape unscathed either; seven or eight of his ribs were broken instantly.

"I said I would spare your lives, but I never said I wouldn't hurt you both."

"The Spirit Road Selection, what a truly wonderful beginning."

Mu Chen finally stopped tormenting the limbless Zhan Xiong, brushed the dirt off his boots, and then walked away with a loud laugh under the terrified gazes of the Zhan brothers.

"Wuu wuu wuu, Big Brother, why are we so unlucky? Our first robbery was such a failure, I want to go home!"

Once they were certain the Devil King had left, the Zhan brothers huddled together and wept bitterly.

In the Great Thousand World, the path of medicinal herbs is incredibly advanced.

Mere broken bones are not difficult to treat, but they require time to recover.

And what they lacked, precisely, was time; one step behind meant falling behind in every step.

In a sense, the Zhan brothers had already been eliminated.

On the clearing, beast roars echoed incessantly.

Two strange spirit beasts, blood-red all over with a single black horn on their foreheads, resembling both tigers and pigs, roared with scarlet eyes as they tore at a single person.

Blood Pig-Tiger, a low-level spirit beast!

The handsome youth in white was unarmed, his movements agile, relying on his footwork to weave between the two fierce low-level spirit beasts and keep them occupied.

From time to time, he would draw blood from them, yet he remained completely unscathed.

"Roar, roar."

With their eyes gouged out and hot blood flowing from various parts of their bodies, the Blood Pig-Tigers gradually lost their senses, going mad and attacking wildly.

The Blood Pig-Tiger is a spirit beast that is clumsy in movement but thick-skinned and exceptionally durable.

Its only weakness is its neck.

Once mature, its strength can reach the Spirit Movement mid-stage.

These two cubs also possessed the strength of the Spirit Movement early-stage.

The youth in white was clearly very familiar with the beast's weakness. As the three figures crossed, a black glint flashed, and blood sprayed into the sky from the necks of the two beasts before they collapsed to the ground with a thud.

Who else could that handsome youth be but Mu Chen?

This was his fifth day in the Spirit Road, and he had already hunted seventeen fierce beasts.

"Two more points in the bag, not bad."

Mu Chen struck the heads of the Blood Pig-Tigers one by one, shattering them.

Blood-colored light dispersed, and two light orbs, each roughly the size of a fist, slowly rose into the air.

Inside each orb, a miniature Blood Pig-Tiger roared, radiating intense ferocity.

Faintly, a ripple of not-insignificant spiritual energy spread outward.

These were Beast Spirits, equivalent to the Spirit Soul of a human martial artist.

He summoned the Blood-Colored Token, which absorbed the Beast Spirits of the two Blood Pig-Tigers.

As always, the spiritual essence obtained from hunting the beasts was split: one part flowed into the token as points, while the other seeped deep into his body, expanding his meridians and tempering his physical form.

Mu Chen felt the warmth flowing through his body and opened his eyes. "At the peak of a First-Grade Spirit Body. One more big guy, and I should be able to advance to a Second-Grade Spirit Body."

As his voice faded, his figure vanished once more.

According to the intelligence he had gathered, a big one was active twenty miles to the southwest.

Amidst the dense shrubbery, a massive, earth-yellow bear several meters tall lay sprawled out. Having finished its meal, it rested lazily, licking its paws from time to time.

The Mountain Bear was a hegemon among low-level spirit beasts; an adult could reach the late stage of the Spirit Movement realm.

Its beast body was massive, and its strength was boundless.

Among low-level spirit beasts, the Blood Pig-Tiger was known for its defense, yet if it encountered an adult Mountain Bear, its body would be like paper, shattered by a single blow.

Its only weakness, if one could call it that, was its heart.

Mu Chen hid in the canopy of a towering ancient tree, looking down from above as the information regarding the earth-yellow giant bear surfaced in his mind like a flowing stream.

A big guy on the verge of breaking through to a mid-level spirit beast.

He made a quick judgment in his heart.

Only a human martial artist at the Spirit Wheel realm could fight a mid-level spirit beast head-on.

With his current strength at the Sensing Realm and a First-Grade Spirit Body, he could not fight it bare-handed.

He would have to rely on the power of a divine weapon to slay this beast.

Thinking of this, Mu Chen's heart stirred, and he immediately summoned an object from his Mustard Seed Bracelet.

The weapon was simple and unadorned, a standard staff about an inch thick and five feet long.

The slender body of the staff flickered with a faint spiritual glow, though it was suppressed to the extreme by the rules of the Spirit Road, making the light nearly invisible, as if it were about to extinguish.

This weapon was known as the Demon-Subduing Staff, a quasi-divine artifact that surpassed even top-grade spirit artifacts.

Because it reached exactly to the level of Mu Chen's eyebrows when stood on the ground, it was also called an "Eyebrow-Level Staff."

When Mu Chen first stepped onto the path of cultivation, his father, the King of Hundred Spirits, Mu Feng, had gathered the royal master craftsmen and the most renowned spirit artifact masters on the continent to forge it as a gift for him.

As for why this weapon was called the Demon-Subduing Staff?

When Mu Feng, this king, stepped into the Supreme realm, the Supreme Dharma Body he condensed was the Demon Subduing Dharma Body, ranked thirty-fifth on the list of ninety-nine Supreme Dharma Bodies.

He drew from the strengths of many, studied hundreds of classics, and combined various staff techniques to create a supreme art called the Demon-Subduing Staff Technique, consisting of thirty-three forms, all of which he passed down to his son.

This was the origin of the Demon-Subduing Staff.

An ancient saying of the Great Thousand world once went: "All arts originate from the staff."

If the saber is the king of all weapons, then the staff is the ancestor of all weapons.

This is because almost all long weapons were developed based on the staff, and their techniques were derived from staff arts; it is the source of all weaponry.

It was precisely this grand ancient saying that led Mu Chen, when he first entered the martial path, to forgo the eighteen types of weapons like sabers, swords, axes, and halberds, choosing only the staff—a weapon rarely seen.